Wednesday, October 22, 2008

More focus on basics for D

The Dallas Cowboys defense has suffered some injuries early in the season. Terence Newman, Roy Williams, Anthony Spencer, etc. have missed games and/or currently are out. Plus, Adam "Pacman" Jones is out indefinitely (and will probably never play in Big D again).

The Cowboys are giving up the 9th-most points per game at 25.0. The Cowboys also have only 2 interceptions on the season (only Seattle and Detroit have fewer).

Wade Phillips will take over play-calling responsibilities for the defense. And the Cowboys are going to focus on a few plays and make sure they do those well instead of several that most likely won't be called in the game.

“We need to do one or two, three things very good,” Phillips said. “We have a lot of calls we haven't used in a game. Our players are preparing to do all those calls (in practice). We need to streamline that part.”

“This game is real simple: They run it, we stop it,” [Tank] Johnson said. “Build a wall. Defense is all about building a wall and offense is about scoring points. As a defense, we have to get better at building a wall and stopping them within that three or four plays we are going to concentrate on.”

If the defense can stop giving up the big play, then the Cowboys can allow Marion Barber and the big boys up front to play a more physical style of football on offense and allow Brad Johnson to manage the game.